Boston Stays Undefeated After Beating Shanghai on Day One of the Stage

Dallas Fuel continues to struggle while Mayhem and Outlaws had redemption in the first matches of the week.

The Dragons have now lost 26 games in a row while the Outlaws bounced back to win against the Valiant. Meanwhile, Fuel gambled with their compositions to try to take down the Mayhem.

Think you missed anything? We’ve got you covered below.

Dragons vs Uprising

Uprising wins, 3-1

The Dragons continued to break hopeful fans hearts thanks to a quick unfortunate end to Volskaya, being full-held on the second point and unfortunately back-capped on their defense round. A large part of their downfall this match is thanks to Striker and Mistakes. Striker has 38 eliminations and four deaths with 20 finals kills on Numbani, according to OWL’s official live stats, while Mistakes had 21 eliminations, 6 deaths and 9 final blows.

Ilios was the most contested map in the series. It was all about the battle between Geguri’s D.va and NotE’s Roadhog and who can be more effective. Though Geguri dominated on Lighthouse, NotE equalized on Well, forcing a final bout on Ruins. Unfortunately for Shanghai, the DPS was allowed to go wild and Diya’s Widow was hard countered by Mistake’s own sniper. Despite a promising start, Shanghai would indeed fall on Ilios and lose the match as well.

Route 66 was a strong map for the Dragons, thanks in part to Diya’s Widowmaker. The team rallied behind him and, despite being denied third point and Diya struggling on McCree in the closing minutes of their attack, Geguri and Fearless helped clear the way for the rest of the team to clean up Boston and silence the Uprising for the moment, clearing the way for a 1-3 score in Uprising’s favor.

Valiant vs Outlaws

Outlaws WIN, 3-1

Temple started out rocky for the Valiant, who were held on the second map thanks in part to Linkzr and Jake. Despite the best attempts from Agilities’ Genji,the DPS of the Outlaws were too much to deny and the Outlaws took the map with over four minutes to spare.

Blizzard World was then a speedrun for the Outlaws thanks to Jake’s Junkrat continuously harassed Valiant’s backline. Valiant couldn’t recover once Linkzr’s Widowmaker struck on attack, allowing the rest of the Outlaws the breathing room needed to quickly close out Blizzard World with less than two ticks needed for the win.

Valiant showed signs of life in Nepal with Soon pinning down most of the Outlaws in Shrine. Once he was snuffed out, however, Coolmatt’s Roadhog was able to lock down Sanctum. From there, a surprise Mei from Linkzr put Valiant on the wrong foot on Village, allowing Outlaws the killing blow (killing icicle?) on Nepal, giving Outlaws the go-ahead point to officially win the match.

Valiant fans, however, at least have a silver lining: thanks to an impressive full hold on defense, the Valiant was able to take down the Outlaws on one of their strongest maps, Junkertown.

Fuel vs Mayhem

MAYHEM WINs, 3-1

Working without EFFECT for the day, Fuel gambled with a triple tank composition but ultimately lost thanks to a hard counter in the form of Tviq’s Junkrat. With no chance to really establish themselves on control points due to the slower mobility of their attack-tank composition, the Mayhem were able to exploit the awkward positioning, allowing Florida to take the first map.

The Fuel seemed to start to bounce back on Numbani with a very quick progression to second point, but ultimately couldn’t hold their momentum once Mayhem readjusted. While they almost made it to the end, it was a tactical error on Fuel’s part that sealed their fate on Numbani, failing to contest the payload and allowing Mayhem to be one map away from winning the match.

On Ilios Ruins, the peel for Mayhem’s supports was stronger than Fuel’s, with Harryhook in particular being caught out of position a few times. Well was hotly contested thanks in part to stellar play from AKM’s Soldier: 76, but AwesomeGuy and Manneten’s tank lineup were more effective around the pit of death, with their Orisa and Roadhog pulling Fuel into the well. With that, Mayhem not only took the map, but also the match.

Though the Mayhem struggled a bit while Tviq was on Bastion, they certainly didn’t have that problem when he was on Genji, bouncing back from a slower start on Junkertownto recover and tie up the map. Once there, both the Fuel and the Mayhem ran almost exactly the same comps, turning the Overtime rounds into a contest of who can more effectively run the standard compositions of Pirate Ship and the triple-tank-two-sniper composition that’s just as common on Junkertown. In the end, it would be Fuel’s latter comp that took the win, thanks in part to the extra 30 seconds they had to get just below the second bridge on the road just outside of Junkertown. With a final successful push in Overtime, Fuel earned the silver lining of not being swept by Florida.

Looking ahead…

Tomorrow kicks off with the Spitfire vs Gladiators, followed by the Shock vs NYXL and finally Dynasty vs Fusion. The Gladiators in particular have a chance to bump themselves up into the top four for playoff contention: if they win and the Gladiators lose, they have a great chance to be in fourth in the stage thanks to map differential. The Dynasty and Fusion are not too far behind either, having the same record as the Gladiators but a weaker map differential.

Meanwhile, the Spitfire will need this win to try to rise above their current ninth place, a lower ranking than anyone else playing on this day. NYXL has also got to win if they want to retake the top spot in the stage.